Leap.Club, the professional network for women announces Bengaluru, Mumbai launch
For years, experts have raised concerns about the low representation of women at senior levels in the corporate sector. The ratio between men and women is nearly the same when they start out but the gap increases over time, with fewer women reaching the C-suite compared to men. Now, a Gurugram-based start-up called Leap.Club is taking major strides towards solving this problem. Here's how.
Founded in May 2020 by ex-Zomato executives Ragini Das and Anand Sinha, Leap.Club is a private professional network that aims to create women leaders of the future. The start-up strives to provide women with the resources they need to make it to the top and reduce the gender differences, be it in terms of representation or pay.
To help advance careers, Leap.Club offers a paid membership program that lets women with varying experience levels connect and build relationships for professional growth. As part of the membership, members get access to an online network, opportunity to privately connect with other members, training by executive coaches, therapy sessions, as well as learning curated content to help them achieve their goals.
Further, Leap.Club plans to offer its members an opportunity to closely connect and interact with leaders and icons in their industry, who will be invited to deliver coaching sessions. "At Leap, we curate intimate fireside chats with industry icons. We make it easy for you to network and learn from leaders who have successfully walked your road," the company says.
Leap.Club opened memberships with 30 founding members on May 1, 2020. Since then, the company's first three batches have already been sold out, with over 100 professionals from different industries as part of their network, co-founder Ragini tells NewsBytes. The members include leaders from companies like Google, Zomato, Uber, Microsoft, Tinder, TikTok, Saif Partners, Michael Page, NDTV, Dunzo, EY, and Group M.
While over 100 professionals have been enrolled, 6,000+ women are on the waitlist to be shortlisted for the Leap.Club network, Ragini added. As of now, she says, the members include entrepreneurs, corporate women, freelancers, professionals, teachers, chefs, journalists, and social workers with experience levels varying from 2 to 18 years. "We are increasing our onboarding team to work through our waitlist faster," she noted.
From here, Leap.Club plans to deploy its resources to increase the onboarding pace and start more batches. The company, which raised a pre-seed round of $340K from top investors in June 2020, aims to build a unicorn in the years to come. It is launching in Bengaluru on August 1 and Mumbai on September 1 and has started onboarding members in the two cities.
"We are building a platform that will disrupt your existing professional networks which are full of spam - how people network, connect, learn, apply for jobs along with our unique focus on the professional growth of our members through coaching and focus on mental wellness," Ragini said. "While we are dreaming big, the short term target is to reach 2,000 members in 8-10 months."
